Year: 2025

There are a couple of interesting airline mergers that were approved in late 2024:

Both are potentially even more interesting than watching a stampede of turtles overrun a Wendy’s drive through.

Lufthansa and ITA

Lufthansa has already said that ITA’s Volare frequent flyer program will be merged into Miles & More, and elite status will transfer too. I expect that by Q3 the frequent flyer programs will integrate, though that’s not set in stone. When the integration happens it means:

  • If you status match to ITA, it’ll probably turn into foreign Star Alliance status (UPDATE: The status match seems dead)
  • ITA Volare miles will probably turn into Miles & More miles

Foreign Star Alliance Gold status will get you access to the United Club when flying United domestically, free-checked bags, priority boarding, and a few lesser benefits.

ITA Volare is an interesting program because partner earning is based on class of service and mileage flown, not on ticket price. That means with really cheap Delta or Aeromexico tickets, you can mileage run way your way into Lufthansa Miles & More miles which can be used to redeem for Swiss Air First Class; the trad mileage run, it turns out, isn’t dead yet.

Korean and Asiana

Asiana never really recovered from COVID-era cutbacks, and its reputation was already suffering after the crash of Asiana 214 even before COVID. Facing Asiana’s bankruptcy, the Korean government approved a merger and EU regulators did in November too, leading to the deal closing last month. You’ve heard what this means before in another song:

  • If you have elite status Asiana, it’ll probably turn into foreign SkyTeam status this year
  • Asiana Club miles will likely be absorbed into the Korean SkyPass mileage program this year

Asiana doesn’t status match, so if you don’t already have status there I can’t help you much. But, turning Asiana Club miles into Korean SkyPass miles is really interesting, because:

  • Korean SkyPass doesn’t have major bank or hotel transfer partners
  • Marriott Bonvoy can transfer to Asiana Club miles at a 3:1 ratio (or even better in increments of 60,000 Bonvoy points)
  • Korean SkyPass members can standby for mileage upgrades to International First
  • Korean’s Business class award chart is extremely reasonable for off-peak awards

Keep your eyes open for Bonvoy transfer bonuses, there’s opportunity here in 2025.

Happy Monday friends!

Next time: McGold status arbitrage for fun and profit.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I still have several guest posts from the holiday break that will go live on Fridays or Saturdays in the coming weeks. If you’d like to contribute a guest post, please reach out!

Also if you wrote to me over the holiday and I haven’t responded, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m still catching up.

  1. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. Hyatt elites can now buy “AA elite status for a day”, up to a whopping two times a year in the Hyatt mobile app. The prices:

    – Gold status for 5,000 Hyatt points
    – Platinum status for 8,000 Hyatt points
    – Platinum Pro status for 12,000 Hyatt points

    The best use cases are probably for checked bag benefits, main cabin extra seating for the account holder and maybe companions, and for international lounge access on economy tickets. You’ll earn bonus miles and you’ll end up on the upgrade list too, but your changes of an upgrade clearing are approximately the same as your chances of being involved in a plane-crash while you’re on a sail-boat moored in a bunker. (Thanks to blinyellow)
  3. American Express has a targeted offer 10,000 Membership Rewards for adding a no-fee Gold card to an existing personal Platinum account and spending $2,000 within six months on the new card. There’s an alternative link too which has different targeting.

    The authorized user card will show up on the user’s credit report, which is great if you’re trying to build credit for a minor, but less great for everyone else. (Thanks to DDG)

AA bag tag for when your status for a day is in transit.

Happy New Year, and thanks to everyone who put together a guest post over the break! I still several posts left that’ll go live on Fridays or Saturdays starting next week. If you’d like to put a post together, please reach out! Also, if you reached out to me over the break and never heard back, I promise I wasn’t just ignoring you – I was ignoring everyone. I’ll be playing catchup this week.

Now let’s dive in:

  1. The Chase Aeroplan card’s 1.25 cents per point cash-out limit was set at 200,000 points annually for 2025. Practically speaking there wasn’t a hard limit before this, but there was a soft limit of about seven figures after which you’d probably get a Chase shutdown.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way card sent offers for calendar year 2025 that mirror those sent at the beginning of 2024. The credits are for spend in gas, grocery, or restaurants and reset monthly. We’ve seen:

    – $200 per month for $2,000+ spend
    – $150 per month for $1,500+ spend
    – $100 per month for $1,000+ spend

    For those who can’t math, that’s $1,200-$2,400 annually in statement credits on a no-annual fee card, and those will stack other offers too. It’s pretty big I guess. Also, apparently there’s another offer for travel and entertainment purchases monthly through 2025, with 5% back up to $80 monthly. Some have both offers. (Thanks to birt and tkpoints)
  3. The US Bank Leverage Visa business card has a sign-up bonus of $750 after $7,500 spend in 120 days and the annual fee is waived for the first year. This card is typically easy to get if you have an existing US Bank Relationship, and often even if you already have the card.
  4. Staples in store has fee-free $200 Visa and Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per person per day, though in practice it’s actually limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

MEAB seen celebrating New Years Day 2025.

Introduction

It’s time for MEAB’s annual New Year tradition! Before we jump in to the regular short-form blog posts that litter the ground like glitter in a stadium after a Taylor Swift concert: A recap of travel hacking and manufactured spend in the last year with the most sophisticated, Shakespearean, high-brow form of story telling known to the modern world (checks notes, furrows brow): Animated GIFs.

Previous versions of the New Years special:

The GIFening

Is it “GIF” with a hard G like “girl”, or with a soft G like “jiffy”? Obviously there’s a right answer, anyhoodles, let’s dive in with the intensity of the Spirit airlines stock price dive in November.

We started out January 2024 wishing for a Technotronic inspired aircraft livery at KLM, which frankly set the stage for 2024 in so many ways; 2024 was poised to be the best year yet, and Technotronic was bound to break the top 40 again.

Reality came fast and dashed our dreams though, with American Express telling us in January that 40 products would be retooled in the coming year, and that Technotronic hadn’t done anything new for over 15 years.

United raised the cost of Lufthansa First and ANA First redemptions, the latter doubling in price. That’s ok though, we can just fly business class, right?

Then we tried flying Lufthansa Business Class, and well, uh, this P2 says it best.

The Justice Department decided to block the JetBlue and Spirit merger.

Spirit Airlines executives react to the blocked merger, get ready to get back to work.

Southwest had its own crisis when Elliott Management became a majority shareholder and demanded major changes and new fees at Southwest. Probably in the name of altruism?

In the credit card space, the shrewd Goldman Sachs reacted to its massive Apple Card losses.

Based on language in the Terms and Conditions, it looked like the American Express Business Platinum $400 annual Dell credits would be going away at the end of 2024.

Then, we, uhhh, “celebrate” that they’re coming back in 2025.

On the other hand, churning Business Platinums and getting 99 employee cards with sign-up bonuses kept going all through 2024, marking more than three consecutive years of the employee sign-up bonus game.

American Express dropped a December surprise with the addition of $50 quarterly credits at Hilton properties on the Business Platinum card. It doesn’t move the needle, but hey, it doesn’t hurt.

Synapse collapses, leaving Yotta and Juno accounts in limbo and ultimately costing consumers than $85 Million in lost deposits.

In the first days after the Synapse collapse, community “experts” come out of the woodwork to tell us that no one is going to lose money based on solid evidence and “something something FDIC”.

Meanwhile, Bilt accidentally sent shutdown notices to many of its card holders, even though they weren’t shutdown.

Then Bilt’s VP of Rewards provided some of the best clues for a manufactured spend technique that many of his followers knew nothing about.

Chase opened new Sapphire Lounges which are some of the best lounges in the US, but then blew the goodwill by removing its Priority Pass restaurant benefit.

The biggest Buyer’s Group spenders spent 24 hours straight, awake in front of the computer on Black Friday.

Travel hackers made their first transfer of Membership Rewards to Alaska MileagePlan via the Hawaiian airlines integration.

American Express sees massive restaurant spend after floosies learn to cycle millions while dining out, decides to take action.

The American Express Gold card gets a $50,000 annual dining 4x spend capacity, and AmEx executives rejoice.

They also instituted a one million Membership Rewards cash-out annual cap at 1.1 cents per point on the Schwab Platinum card, and they called us names while doing it.

SideshowBob233 (pictured in costume) reacts to churners on his flight that have Chase deposit accounts.

Mesa executives wait for sufficient time to pass between a bad MEAB post and their impending launch.

MEAB (pictured on the right side) at a travel hacking conference meets other bloggers.

A churner finds a way out of pop-up jail.

And after getting out of pop-up jail, the churner realizes it may be repeatable.

MEAB does another math post (or two), tries to show off.

We rode high on cash-back debits in early 2024.

A few of those plays died, but we found workarounds, we just needed to think outside the box.

Kudos raced with shopping portals for payouts.

Virgin Atlantic became relevant with the introduction of the Virgin Credit card and its perks, some payment fun, and the introduction of dynamic pricing.

Critics review MEAB.

SAS announces a promotion to earn a million miles for flying on 15 different SkyTeam partners in Q4, travel hackers react.

SAS realizes people are taking their promotion seriously, and races to build its SkyTeam integration with quirky airlines.

Readers try and follow the hints in MEAB wisdom posts.

Botting several key deals made the money flow.

Tallying Carl’s 2024 earnings, prolly.

MEAB’s P2 flies Lufthansa First class for the first time.

Pepper Saga Part I:
Getting unlimited 10% off of Walmart, BestBuy, and Sam’s Club cards (Q1-Q2).

Pepper Saga Part II:
Unlimited 10% stops working, but new, daily targeted promotions start working after a hiccup or two.

Pepper Saga Part III:
Gift card resale rates fall in slow motion due to oversupply.

Pepper Saga Part IV:
A pitch deck for new investors claiming a total addressable market of $6 trillion, approximately 23% of the US GDP.

Pepper Saga Part V:
The company gives unlimited 20% off of Amazon and Walmart gift cards for a day and is probably nearly out of money.

Pepper Saga Part VI:
A Q1 2025 preview (Probably)

Pepper Saga Part VII:
(space left intentionally blank)

“Seat 21A? I didn’t know first class went back this far.”

“Oh no.”

[4 and 1/2 hours later after touchdown in seat 21A]

2024 finally redeems itself when Technotronic rewrote “Pump Up the Jam” for Bob’s Burgers in late 2024, proving to us that Belgium’s flagship band still has a chance at a KLM livery.

Happy 2025 friends!